Student who changed grades via computer hacking gets jail time

Once he’d hacked into his high school’s computerize grading system four years ago, a Glenbard South student didn’t electronically elevate himself to the honor roll.

Abraham Ali, a junior at the time, merely erased some F’s and replaced them with humble scores of D.

“He told a school official he was trying to be subtle,” Assistant DuPage County State’s Attorney Diane Michalak said Thursday, as Ali, 21, pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor count of attempted computer tampering. The Glen Ellyn resident was sentenced to 60 days of work-release in the county jail and paid more than $11,000 in court-ordered restitution.

His incursions crashed the system on several occasions between January and March 2009, Michalak said, and officials at the school in Glen Ellyn were able to trace the crashes to Ali, who accessed the system via the school’s own computers.

He used a password “sniffer,” software designed to capture the system account names and passwords of teachers, she said.

After identifying Ali as the source of the crashes, the school had his teachers check their grades for him, Michalak said, and his math and English instructors noted nine alterations. Ali, she said, changed his marks for days when he had been absent and had received F’s on quizzes and in-class assignments. But he raised his failing grades just a little, up to D’s.

Under the terms of his plea, Ali, now a sophomore at the College of DuPage, can attend school or work during the day, but will have to report for 60 nights at the jail. He must also spend 20 days in the DuPage sheriff’s work program, and he will be on conditional discharge for 24 months.

He paid his former high school $11,600, the amount the school district spent bringing in outside experts to beef up computer security and check out the school’s system, Michalak said.

Ali’s attorney, Raheel Shahzad, called his client’s tampering “the misguided acts of a young life.”

Outside court, Ali said he regretted his actions. But he is still interested in computers; he said he someday hopes to open his own web design company.